Retrovirus vectors are a common tool for gene delivery (Miller, Nature (1992) 357:455–460). The ability of retrovirus vectors to deliver an unrearranged, single copy gene into a broad range of rodent, primate and human somatic cells makes retroviral vectors well suited for transferring genes to a cell.
A useful adjunct for producing recombinant retroviral vectors are packaging cell lines which supply in trans the proteins necessary for producing infectious virions, but those cells are incapable of packaging endogenous viral genomic nucleic acids (Watanabe & Temin, Molec. Cell. Biol. (1983) 3(12):2241–2249; Mann et al., Cell (1983) 33:153–159; Embretson & Temin, J. Virol. (1987) 61(9):2675–2683). A consideration in the construction of retroviral packaging cell lines is the production of high titer vector supernatants free of recombinant replication competent retrovirus (RCR), which have been shown to produce T cell lymphomas in rodents (cloyd et al., J. Exp. Med. (1980) 151:542–552) and in primates (Donahue et al., J. Exp. Med. (1992) 176:1125–1135).
One approach to minimize the likelihood of generating RCR in packaging cells is to divide the packaging functions into two genomes, for example, one which expresses the gag and pol gene products and the other which expresses the env gene product (Bosselman et al., Molec. Cell. Biol. (1987) 7(5):1797–1806; Markowitz et al., J. Virol. (1988) 62(4):1120–1124; Danos & Mulligan, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (1988) 85:6460–6464). That approach minimizes the ability for co-packaging and subsequent transfer of the two-genomes, as well as significantly decreasing the frequency of recombination due to the presence of three retroviral genomes in the packaging cell to produce RCR.
In the event recombinants arise, mutations (Danos & Mulligan, supra) or deletions (Boselman et al., supra; Markowitz et al., supra) can be configured within the undesired gene products to render any possible recombinants non-functional. In addition, deletion of the 3′ LTR on both packaging constructs further reduces the ability to form functional recombinants.
Lentiviruses are complex retroviruses which, in addition to the common retroviral genes gag, pol and env, contain other genes with regulatory or structural function. The higher complexity enables the lentivirus to modulate the life cycle thereof, as in the course of latent infection.
A typical lentivirus is the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the etiologic agent of AIDS. In vivo, HIV can infect terminally differentiated cells that rarely divide, such as lymphocytes and macrophages. In vitro, HIV can infect primary cultures of monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) as well as HeLa-Cd4 or T lymphoid cells arrested in the cell cycle by treatment with aphidicolin or γ irradiation.
Infection of cells is dependent on the active nuclear import of HIV preintegration complexes through the nuclear pores of the target cells. That occurs by the interaction of multiple, partly redundant, molecular determinants in the complex with the nuclear import machinery of the target cell. Identified determinants include a functional nuclear localization signal (NLS) in the gag matrix (MA) protein, the karyophilic virion-associated protein, vpr, and a C-terminal phosphotyrosine residue in the gag MA protein.